The Voice of a Youthful Flower

As a child, I had once been subjected to the stories, the whispered rumors about flowers. My female friends and I would prance through fields of them, caught up in the carefree wind of childhood. We would fall to our knees as we tried to catch our breath, which had escaped like a bird from its cage, and rolled and writhed in the healthy green grass, overcome by contagious laughter.

They say that there's a flower for every meaning and hope that you could ever possibly perceive...That flowers are soulful plants that can convey messages through the colors inked intricately on their petals, and if you listened very closely, you could sometimes even hear them speak. Being the gullible child that I was, I had convinced my friends to test the hearsay with me, by pressing our ears to blossoms, and straining our ears.

I never heard a word.

I was humiliated, and angry at my own naivety. My friends giggled, saying that I was a silly girl to think that such impossible things could be proved right. I made not a move to defend myself, ashamed.

Youth is like a flower not yet bloomed, a sour bud growing and learning slowly, a shy and naive life. Too soon comes adolescence, where the petals begin to peel back from the wrappings of the core, and the life begins to truly bloom. Throughout the flower's life, it will be trampled upon by arrogant, conceited feet...But somehow, some will endure.

At my ripe old age, I tell my grand-daughters exactly what I had told my daughters. That if you listen closely, you really can pick up the faint sound of a flower's voice. Immersed in childhood, you probably will not overhear the whisper, but once you blossom into a woman, the words are as clear as day, the voice is more prominent.

They say 'take your time in bloom, do not rush for anyone. A perfect flower is patient with itself'.